Food companies cooking up a novel product will soon be able to check how elderly people will fare when they try to chew on it, thanks to a device that mimics the taste and “mouthfeel” of food.
Already, virtual reality devices have been built that try to simulate experiences for four of our five senses [...]

A new collagen-based sealant that can be poured or injected into wounds has sped healing in rats by up to 50%.
Douglas Miller, a research scientist with Texas A&M University, and colleagues found a significant difference in laboratory rats treated with the collagen material compared to untreated rats.
Wounds of treated rats healed in three days [...]

US firm Space Adventures is potentially interested in buying a Russian Soyuz spacecraft to make tourist flights to the International Space Station (ISS), ITAR-TASS quoted the company’s chief as saying.
The Arlington, Virgina-based firm, which brokered the first two tourist space flights in 2001 and 2002, has signed a contract with the Russian space agency [...]

Microsoft might be on the verge of its best office invention yet: a self-charging robot slave that goes to meetings in your place.
Imagine the hooky-playing possibilities that Robie the Robot could create. You can control the robot from a personal computer, using its two-way audio and video technology to participate by proxy. You also [...]

It’s hard to find a more loyal customer for U.S. satellites than Telesat Canada. In the past 30 years, this unit of BCE Inc. has bought 14 birds, all from south of the border. But in March the Ottawa company announced it was buying a spacecraft from France’s Astrium. After gaining experience with the new [...]

A burst of brain activity recorded by scientists could offer clues to a baby’s level of understanding of the world around it.
The researchers involved, from Birkbeck College, and University College London, believe their finding could begin to settle a controversial argument on baby brain development.
When an object is shown to six-month-old babies, then hidden, [...]

One out of 10 jobs in the U.S. computer services and software industry could shift to lower-cost emerging markets such as India or Russia by the end of 2004, a top computer consultancy said on Tuesday.
Gartner Inc., the world’s biggest high-tech forecasting firm, said in a report entitled “U.S. Offshore Outsourcing: Structural Changes, Big Impact” [...]

As yet another sign of potential backlash against nascent nanotechnology, Greenpeace has issued a report concluding that the technology is developing faster than relevant social policy and that extensive environmental research on it needs to be conducted.
The report, carried out for the Greenpeace Environmental Trust by Imperial College London, explores such notions as the idea [...]

Children who have musical training also have significantly better verbal memory than children who don’t, and the difference increases the longer they study.
The finding was made by psychologists at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and reported in the July issue of the journal Neuropsychology.
Researchers Anges Chan, Yim-Chi Ho and Mei-Chun Cheung propose [...]

A week without e-mail is more traumatic than moving house or getting divorced, say techies.
The findings come in a survey of information technology managers for the software storage firm Veritas which looked at how businesses have become dependent on e-mail.
Electronic mail is playing such a key role in companies that most people start to [...]

India, the world’s largest democracy, has announced that every vote in its 2004 national election will be registered and counted using electronic ballot machines.
With more than 600 million registered voters, India’s parliamentary election is the biggest on Earth.
Electronic voting machines have already been used successfully in Indian state elections. But on Monday, Indian election [...]

Two-dimensional barcodes displayed on a mobile phone screen serve as tickets to exhibitions or events under a service from Japanese firm, Index Corp, whose systems authenticate the barcode prior to entry. Index’s ASP architecture provides increased event security by matching the ID of a mobile phone to each barcode used to access a venue, which [...]

Muslim men can divorce their wives using text messaging, a religious adviser to the Malaysian government has ruled. The New Straits Times said that Hamid Othman, who advises the prime minister on religious matters, said divorce by short messaging service is consistent with sharia law if it is clear and unambiguous. Islamic law permits a [...]

Engineers at the University of Calgary have developed a pill that, once swallowed, will determine how healthy or ill the patient is, and will release just the right amount of medicine accordingly.
Dubbed the Intelligent Pill or iPill, the new drug-delivery system packs a micropump and sensors that monitor the body’s temperature and pH balance [...]

It is a common problem – you are in a bar or restaurant with your drink almost gone and you are desperately hoping that one of the staff will notice and offer you a refill. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. If they don’t, you leave a little less happy with your experience [...]

Happy people are three times less likely to get a cold, according to researchers who squirted cold virus up the noses of volunteers.
Psychologist Sheldon Cohen and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University, Pennsylvania, also found that the positive thinkers who do develop symptoms complain about them less.
The team studied over 300 initially healthy volunteers. First, [...]

Ask Marcus Courtney, president of a Seattle-area union for technology workers, whether state governments should outsource work only to firms that hire U.S.-based employees, and the answer is a predictable yes.
“The fact is that these are taxpayer dollars, and there is clearly a benefit for taxpayer dollars to go to support the economy in [...]

An Indian woman dumped her three children at a police station after officers refused to heed her request for the release of her husband.
The resident of Chapra, in Rajasthan, was arrested for illegal mining.
Shortly afterwards, his wife and three young children arrived at the police station and pleaded that officers release her husband because he [...]

According to a survey of 2,618 people, aged 13 to 24, teenagers and young adults spend more time on the Internet than watching television, indicating a shift in media consumption for a demographic prized by advertisers. On average, young people said they spent nearly 17 hours online each week, not including time used to read [...]

The American Bamboo Society has a page showing a working bamboo bike.
Quite a contrast from the finely formed aluminum and titanium bikes making there way in the marketplace. I really can’t wait until someone makes a glass bicycle.
More here.

While prosthetic surgery is generally thought of in the terms of replacing a missing or defective body part, a group of artists is looking at prosthetics as a means of enhancing the body’s form and functions.
The Australian-based Tissue Culture and Art (TCA) project is growing a third ear fashioned out of the skin and [...]

Cool Amphibious Manufacturers International, LLC, is now marketing their TerraWind line of combination Motor Coach / Yachts. Thats right, a 42 foot Luxury RV you can take to, or in, the lake! With a not exactly cheap pricetag of $850K+, included is the full rigging of luxury home features: Granite countertops, marble floors, teak cabinetry, [...]

Scientists have created a technique that dramatically improves the performance of musicians.
The system – called neurofeedback – trains musicians to clear their minds and produce more creative brain waves.
Research, to be published in the journal Neuroreport, indicates the technique helps musicians to improve by an average of 17% – the equivalent of one [...]

University of Michigan scientists have developed a new technique to sort out the swimmers from the duds in semen, which could lead to a more efficient way for men who suffer from low sperm counts to make babies.
The new sperm sorter consists of a penny-size silicon chip divided into two channels. Semen is dripped onto [...]

The FBI and consumer organisations in the US have issued a warning about a growing fraud scheme involving emails that lure people to fake websites to collect sensitive personal or financial data.
The scam involves email that links users to sites that are designed to look like legitimate sites and deceive consumers into revealing credit card [...]